- 건국대학교

	Professor Deok-Kun Oh’s team Develops Eco-friendly Nylon Monomer technology
	관리자		472		2020.04.20

Prof. Deok-Kun Oh (Department of Integrative Bioscience and Biotechnology, Konkuk Istitute of Technology) and Professor Jin-Byung Park (Department of Food Science and Engineering, Ewha Womans University) announced that they have developed a technology that produces high concentrations by collaborating with dicarboxylic acid and aminocarboxylic acid, nylon monomers for nylon synthesis. * Monomer: A substance that becomes a unit when making a polymer compound through a chemical reaction 
 <img style="margin-left: auto; display: block; margin-right: auto;" alt="" src="ArticleFile.do?id=11785729" width="608" height="282" /> This research was conducted with the support of the Ministry of Science and Technology's fundamental research project (medium-sized research), and is scheduled to be published in Volume 10, Issue 8 of 2020, ACS Catalysis (IF = 12.221), an authoritative international journal in the field of chemical engineering. (Title of paper: Multi-Layer Engineering of Enzyme Cascade Catalysis for One-Pot Preparation of Nylon Monomers from Renewable Fatty Acids) (Co-first author: Tae-Hun Kim, Su-Hwan Kang, Co-responding author: Professor Deok-Kun Oh)
The research team of Konkuk University improved the activity and stability of the biocatalyst by constructing a biocatalyst applied with enzyme engineering and cofactor regeneration and adding a resin to produce a high-concentration eco-friendly nylon monomer. In addition, the team overcomes the limitations of the existing nylon monomer production technology by overcoming the inhibitory effect of the hydrophobic material affecting the biocatalyst.
Current nylon monomers were chemically produced through heavy metal catalysts using toxic substances such as strong acids, organic solvents, and ozone to cause pollution. To solve this, it is required to develop biotechnological production technologies that produce nylon monomers in an environmentally friendly manner. However, the current biotechnological production method has a problem that the nylon monomer produced from vegetable oil is less than 1 g / L, which is a concentration that cannot be applied industrially.
Prof. Deok-Kun Oh's research team pointed out the causes of the low stability and low activity of enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of nylon precursors and the inhibition of biocatalysts by the by-products.
For industrial production of nylon monomers through an environmentally friendly method, maltose-binding proteins are applied to enzymes involved in biosynthesis to produce fusion-proteins and cofactor regeneration systems. The stability and activity of the biocatalyst were greatly improved by constructing the cofactor regeneration systems. Further, in order to overcome the inhibitory effect of n-heptanoic acid produced as a by-product reported to have great toxicity to the biocatalyst, a resin was added to the reaction solution to attach heptanoic acid to the resin to separate and react with the biocatalyst. By doing so, it not only overcomes the inhibitory effect on the biocatalyst, but also has developed a method that can easily obtain only nylon monomers by removing by-products (Figure 2).
Prof. Deok-Kun Oh's team constructed biocatalytic engineering and engineering biosynthesis system through the addition of resin to produce nylon monomers undecanedioic acid and aminoundecanoic acid from recinoleic acid, the main component of vegetable oil. aminoundecanoic acid) was successfully biotechnologically produced at a level of 50 g / L applicable to industrial applications. It is expected that it will be possible to produce eco-friendly materials in various industrial fields in the future by enabling eco-friendly industrial production through chemical biosynthesis systems that have been difficult to produce industrially using biotechnological methods.
 
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　　　　　　　　　　▲ (Figure 1) <img style="margin-left: auto; display: block; margin-right: auto;" alt="" src="ArticleFile.do?id=11785226" width="608" height="360" /> 　　　　　　　　▲ (Figure 2)

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